Peer-Reviewed Afterlife Studies
Dr. Jeffrey Long & The Largest Study of Near Death Experiences
Podcaster Danny Jones recently interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Long, a physician and radiation oncology specialist who, in his spare time, does great work in parapsychology: most notably, near-death experience (NDE) studies.*
*Of course, as an aside, I must object to Dr. Raymond Moody’s term from the 1970s, as it is clearly a misnomer and deserves something more accurate. Post-cardiac arrest experiences are not “near” death experiences (as if death is something else entirely), they are simply accounts of the experience of death—not substantially different from what Lazarus or Jesus experienced, since returning from death does not invalidate that a death has taken place. We should remember that death is the separation of the spirit from a body which can no longer house it for any length of time.
Summary
Here is a summary of the key points, and then we will dive into a few of them:
Dr. Long has studied over 4,000 NDEs through his Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, collecting detailed accounts from people worldwide. The experiences show striking cross-cultural similarities.
Common NDE elements include out-of-body experiences, seeing a bright light, feelings of peace and love, life reviews, encountering deceased relatives or spiritual beings, and glimpses of a transcendent realm.
Communication and life reviews during NDEs happen outside the constraints of normal linear time. Living two weeks in another dimension could translate to two minutes here.
NDEs involve conscious awareness and vivid experiences while clinically dead or near-death, which should be impossible according to current medical understanding of brain function ceasing after the heart stops.
NDEs often lead to a loss of fear of death and a renewed sense of life's bigger picture or reincarnation for the experiencer.
Shared NDEs, where two people interact while out-of-body, provide compelling evidence that consciousness can exist apart from the physical brain.
The consistent patterns across NDEs from diverse backgrounds suggest they are real phenomena worthy of deeper scientific study.
A significant number of NDEs involve a residual increase in psychical perception.
NDErs blind from birth gain extrasensory supernormal vision for the first time at death, and it is spherical in nature rather than the linear, conical vision we have with two eyes.
A significant number of NDEs involve memories of past lives.
A small percentage (around 5%) of NDEs are atypical or distressing, sometimes described as "hellish" realms, but these appear temporary rather than an eternal condemnation, and those who are there desire to be there as if that is their heaven.
The Shared Death Experience: People who die together.
Dr. Jeffrey Long has collected around 20 cases in his Near-Death Experience Research Foundation database where two or more people simultaneously had a life-threatening event and both had a shared death experience (SDE):
In these SDEs, the people report being able to see each other's conscious awareness/souls outside of their physical bodies and communicate with each other.
They often have dramatic discussions like "Wow, there are our bodies down there and here are our consciousnesses up above."
In virtually all of these SDE cases, one person goes on to have permanent and irreversible death, while the other person recovers from their close brush with death.
The person who recovers is then able to share the account of their SDE, providing compelling evidence that consciousness can exist apart from the physical brain.
Dr. Long provides an example of a SDE:
A gentleman was driving his fiancé—they were in Canada—he was driving along and he fell asleep. So the car crashed, and then both him and his fiancé died and their consciousnesses rose above the crashed car, and they were met by four beings. They felt an overwhelming sense of love and compassion, so when these two beings flanked each of them, the group of four beings, they separated—they actually went up above their car holding hands, so the beings they encountered gently separated their hands.
So the gentleman who survived said he felt so much peace and so much love that he wanted to resist, but really didn't, and they could see off in the distance a landscape and unearthly realm if you will—some call it a Heavenly realm—but they saw that over there, and two of the beings took his fiancé and very gently started moving her toward that distant realm (which is I know full well from near-death experiences at unearthly afterlife realm) and the other two beings gently led him back down to the car.
So when his physical consciousness recovered in the car, the front of the car was on fire, and his fiancé was leaning, and he instantly knew that was—in his words—”a shell,” because she was dead, and he knew that instantly, and he'd left his fiancé with the other beings above.
So these dramatic SDE accounts, where two people interact in a conscious state while clinically dead or near death, provide some of the most direct observational evidence that consciousness can exist non-physically according to Dr. Long's research.
Religious distinctives irrelevant to NDEs.
Dr. Jeffrey Long has analyzed his large database of over 4,000 NDEs and cannot find any correlation between a person's pre-existing religious beliefs and the probability or content of their NDE.
The elements and events that occur during NDEs, such as out-of-body experiences, seeing deceased loved ones, encountering a bright light/being of love, etc. are strikingly consistent across all cultures and religions. However, some NDErs may interpret or identify certain NDE elements through the lens of their existing religious/cultural beliefs. For example, a Christian may identify the being of light as Jesus, while a Jewish person may see it as a prophet. In some cases, NDErs report being able to request the light being or presence to appear in a particular form based on the NDEr's beliefs or preferences.
The study of 834 NDErs showed a profound increase in belief that God definitely exists after the NDE, going from 37% to 71% after the experience.
Very young children who have NDEs before being exposed to religious concepts still report extremely similar NDE content as older children and adults, suggesting the experiences are not shaped by preconceived religious beliefs.
While NDEs do not appear directly tied to or influenced by one's starting religious beliefs, they can lead to a stronger belief in a higher power or God for many experiencers. But the core NDE phenomena itself transcends cultural and religious boundaries according to Dr. Long's analysis.
NDEs tend to provide residual psychic enhancements
The search results provide some insights on near-death experiences (NDEs) potentially giving people enhanced psychical capabilities, and how this relates to the phenomenon of remote viewing:
Dr. Jeffrey Long has collected accounts where a notable percentage of NDErs report developing new psychic-type abilities like premonitions, intuitive knowledge, and expanded consciousness after their experience, even if they didn't have such abilities before. Dr. Long (and Danny Jones) speculates that for these individuals, the NDE may have opened or sensitized them to perceiving reality in a new way, almost like removing a "filter" that normally limits human consciousness and awareness.
A parallel is rightly drawn between these reported post-NDE psychic abilities and the phenomenon of remote viewing, where some people seem to have an intuitive ability to perceive remote locations or future events outside of normal sensory constraints.
Danny Jones and Dr. Long talk about the research of Dr. Garry Nolan at Stanford University, who found that the neurons within the caudate nucleus were more dense in people reporting paranormal, UFO, or remote viewing experiences, potentially allowing expanded consciousness.
So while direct data is limited, Dr. Long's extensive NDE research has uncovered many cases of people developing enhanced intuitive, precognitive, or psychic-like abilities after their NDE, similar to the remote viewing phenomenon. He theorizes NDEs may be removing filters or limitations in the brain that normally constrain human consciousness and awareness.
Evidence of Reincarnation
A significant number of NDEs involve memories of previous incarnations:
Over 100 NDEs in Dr. Long's research involve clear memories of a previous life or multiple past lives, even if the experiencer did not previously believe in reincarnation.
Young children sometimes report memories of past lives before learning to speak, suggesting an innate recollection. However, these memories tend to fade as they get older.
The consistency of reincarnation accounts across diverse cultures and ages points to NDEs providing evidence of an afterlife and reincarnation, according to Dr. Long, though he remains open to further investigating the phenomenon.
In his research (in contradistinction to Dr. Jeffrey Kripal’s theory*), there is no predisposition for people to remember a past life as a male more than females, and the past lives remembered are not necessarily traumatic deaths (or well-known ancient celebrities), but are the more mundane lives of the historically unknown.
Dr. Long admitted that initially, prior to his research, he thought reincarnation was not something to take seriously. It was the significant number of NDEs involving past life memories has led him to seriously consider reincarnation as a genuine reality worthy of more research.
*Jeffrey Kripal’s theory was that children remembering past lives is inherently connected to the trauma of that previous life. Since historically, men were more likely to suffer traumatic deaths, Kripal reasoned that there is an overrepresentation of children retaining that trauma and recalling past lives as the male gender. It is a sensible theory based on the many accounts I’ve read where night terrors are a package deal, and I do not think Dr. Jeffrey Long’s work necessarily contradicts it, since Long was not referring specifically to children who remember past lives with no NDE.
Further Reading:
There is currently more scientific evidence to the reality of near death experience than there is for how to effectively treat certain forms of cancer.
- Dr. Jeffrey Long
Fascinating.